Jones v. State, 6 Div. 20.
| Decision Date | 21 March 1944 |
| Docket Number | 6 Div. 20. |
| Citation | 17 So.2d 545,31 Ala.App. 378 |
| Parties | JONES v. STATE. |
| Court | Alabama Court of Appeals |
Rehearing Denied April 11, 1944.
V.H Carmichael and Pennington & Tweedy, all of Jasper, for appellant.
Wm N. McQueen, Acting Atty. Gen., and Frank N. Savage, Asst Atty. Gen., for the State.
Appellant was tried under an indictment charging him with the offense of murder in the second degree. He was convicted of the offense of manslaughter in the first degree, and his punishment fixed at imprisonment in the penitentiary for the term of two years and six months.
Appellant, deceased, and another were in the home of said other drinking "home-brew," which we know to mean an intoxicating "home-made" beer.
It would seem inadvisable to narrate in detail the testimony. Let it suffice to say that while defendant's witness Alvis, designated above as the "other," or "another," was temporarily out of the room where the three mentioned were drinking the "home-brew," a fight arose between appellant and deceased. The exact manner in which the said fight begun, or its progress, is in serious dispute in the testimony.
It is enough to say that appellant's testimony, corroborated by Alvis, was to the effect that deceased attacked appellant with a chair--at the same time applying to him a vile epithet,--whereupon appellant, in defending himself, struck deceased a blow or blows over the head with a chair, or empty wooden "powder box," and killed him.
The State's testimony, consisting only of appellant's alleged confession, made to the officers while he was in jail on the same day the killing occurred, was to the effect that deceased did nothing more than apply the said vile epithet to appellant, whereupon appellant struck the deceased over the head with a chair or "powder box" and killed him.
The issues raised were properly submitted to the jury.
As intimated above, appellant relied, in support of his plea of self-defense, upon his own testimony, in connection with that of the witness Alvis. True, he brought to the witness stand numbers of the prominent citizens of his County who testified that he bore a good reputation.
But his principal reliance was upon the testimony of the witness Alvis. This witness corroborated his own version of the manner in which the fight with deceased arose. And if Alvis told the truth, appellant did the act, which brought about the death of deceased, in defense of his own life, or to avoid suffering grievous bodily harm. So whether or not Alvis did tell the truth on the witness stand was vital to appellant's defense.
In this connection, the Solicitor, on cross-examination of Alvis asked him--after Alvis had told of the fight between appellant and deceased, and given his version of how it occurred and proceeded--if he did not tell the wife of deceased, who came up to Alvis' home after deceased was killed, that "if he (Alvis) hadn't run under the table and behind the stove he (appellant) would have killed him (Alvis)." Alvis denied that he did so. This was entirely immaterial to any issue involved in the trial, and was but the unauthorized conclusion or opinion of Alvis....
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...96 So.2d 313; Booker v. City of Birmingham, 23 Ala.App. 312, 125 So. 603; Grant v. State, 23 Ala.App. 54, 120 So. 465; Jones v. State, 31 Ala.App. 378, 17 So.2d 545; Wright v. State, 37 Ala.App. 689, 74 So.2d 727; and it should be borne in mind that § 1 of T. 29 must be construed in pari ma......
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Daniel v. State, 4 Div. 811.
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